ABA Division for Bar Services: Bar Leader Magazine

Task force lays groundwork for Internet delivery of legal services

By Anna Marie Kukec

Last year, American Bar Association President William Paul commissioned a task force to examine e-lawyering, the Web-based legal services that have proliferated on the Internet.

Paul set hefty goals: create a Web site that promotes the use of technology in legal services; hold an invitation-only conference; produce a report; promote the benefits among practitioners; and recommend a long-range plan.

The Law Practice Management Section TECH 2000 Task Force has already accomplished some of its goals, including its first invitation-only e-Lawyering Conference. Last March, more than 50 lawyers, technology specialists, university professors and bar leaders explored unbundling legal services and the impact on the Internet; regulatory and ethical issues; digital applications; and models for delivery.

The task force and the conference focused on divorce, bankruptcy and other common legal services. It recommends that the ABA and its president should:

Fund an entity to review existing ethics rules to identify those that impede the use of the Internet to deliver legal services to low and moderate income Americans and, on an accelerated basis, to submit recommendations consistent with the core values of the profession to rule-making authorities.
Designate an entity to engage state rule-making and rule-enforcement authorities so that interpretations and enforcement do not inhibit innovation. Also, convene a multi-state (virtual and live) conference of state bar ethics policymakers and disciplinary officers, National Organization of Bar Counsel and National Conference of Bar Presidents to encourage Internet delivery of legal services and information.
Designate an appropriate entity to facilitate the immediate creation of Safe Harbor rules (what lawyers can do) to facilitate technical and practice innovations while protecting consumers, lawyers and providers.
Delegate to an appropriate entity the responsibility to develop collaborative relationships between non-profit organizations and entities engaged in electronic commerce (e-commerce) and those engaged in the Internet delivery of legal services.
Designate an entity to help develop and sponsor the Legal XML Standard (the next generation of HTML, or hypertext markup language for Web sites). The ABA will encourage the use of the standard among its members, private industry, courts and government agencies and adopt this standard for all ABA publications.
Designate an appropriate entity to facilitate private-sector development of low-cost, comprehensive Internet practice tools for lawyers to improve law practice efficiency and better legal services. These tools should be targeted to small and solo practitioners.
Delegate an entity to establish standards and policies for e-law sites and provide ABA stamps of approval for them. These standards should include those relating to privacy, disclosures, disclaimers, confidentiality, due diligence, security, consumer information and consistency of business models with professional norms.
Designate an entity to revise the MacCrate Report’s "Statement of Fundamental Lawyering Skills and Values" to reflect new technological advances and interdisciplinary developments as standards of lawyer competency.

While each recommendation refers to designating, delegating or funding an entity, a separate group for each situation may not be needed. Some duties may be assigned to existing ABA groups, which are yet to be determined, according to task force member Ronald Staudt of Chicago, a law professor and an associate vice president for law, business and technology for Chicago-Kent College of Law. The ABA and Chicago-Kent produced the conference.

The conference and the task force recommendations will help chart the course for the ABA, almost like the Clinton administration’s 1997 White Paper that studied and encouraged the use of the Internet and offered a hands-off approach to e-commerce, Staudt adds.

"We took an approach very much like the U.S. government approach to the Internet. We need to create an opportunity for our professionals to use this new and powerful tool to deliver legal services to people who need legal services–and then get out of the way and still remain effective," says Staudt.

Involving bar leaders at the start may encourage more input and a broader perspective as the ABA develops its protocol to address ethics rules and the Internet, says Laurel Bellows of Chicago, president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents. Since NCBP has immediate access to state and local bar leaders who can urge their councils to discuss these issues, she encourages bar leaders to appoint a representative from their associations who is already an expert in ethics and the Internet.

"We can facilitate the acceptance of the product of this group (TECH 2000) and promulgate the rules as they are generated. NCBP can ensure expedient input, comments and acceptance," Bellows notes.

Bar leaders are also interested in how their members can use technology and the Internet to make legal services more efficient and accessible, according to Debra Matlock of Downers Grove, Ill., vice president of the National Bar Association, who attended the e-Lawyering Conference. Matlock is director of business development and strategic alliances for Motorola.

"If we use the technology so much that we make legal services more accessible and more user friendly, many people may not have a need for lawyers," Matlock notes.

While the conference was informative, Matlock felt more questions were raised: How accessible and user friendly should legal services be? How do we balance those qualities while being comprehensive? What measure is used to determine what is legally sufficient information? How much online advice should lawyers provide?

Also, the issue of unauthorized practice of law emerges as many Web sites offer legal services from non-lawyers. Determining the authorities in a global domain can be confusing.

"Most people believe that if it’s on the Internet, it’s free. Then what becomes our fee basis? How do we establish value? It all comes down to balance, accessibility and ease of use," Matlock adds.

Several Web sites that provide legal services are already available, including Thelaw.com by former New York Mayor Ed Koch, which provides research in various areas of law, chats with lawyers, lawyer referral services, among other features. Another example is Americounsel.com by Harvard Law School Professor Arthur Miller, which features a price menu for services, as well as legal news stories.

The proliferation of such Web sites convinced the ABA that it needed to create the task force, explains Will Hornsby Jr. of Chicago, staff counsel for ABA Division for Legal Services and a conference speaker.

"The ABA can provide information and support to members to help them use technology to enable them to make their practice more effective and cost efficient," Hornsby says.

In May, TECH 2000 convened again in New Hampshire during the Law Practice Management section meeting to discuss an action plan based on the recommendations.

The author is the former reporter for Bar Leader